The Integrated Health and Social Care Foundation Year provides a route onto a degree if you don't meet the entry requirements for the BA but have the ability and motivation to study for a degree.

We know that services for people are most effective when they are joined up and health and social care professionals work together. It’s important to understand people’s physical health needs, their emotional needs and their social circumstances. This can help us to appreciate each person’s unique circumstances and work in joined-up ways to find solutions.

Traditional health and social care roles are changing. There’s a shift towards partnership working across the health and social care sector including within social services, charities, the NHS and social enterprises. We’ve designed this course to help you work across these settings so you can have a positive impact on people’s lives.

You won’t simply learn the theory behind integrating health and social care, you’ll explore how it works in practice from working with service users to designing service provision. Topics might include how unevenly distributed resources across society affect a person’s life, how the support and care a person needs changes as they age or how to recognise a person’s strengths to make a difference to their life.

You’ll also explore global representations and perspectives of health and social care. Alongside lectures and seminars, you’ll work in small groups to solve problems set by employers such as developing ideas for community projects around homelessness, poverty and isolation.

Perhaps you’ve been inspired by a social enterprise and want to set up your own? Maybe you want to work in advocacy and campaign work? Or, conduct research in the fields of mental or sexual health?

From working with vulnerable individuals with emotional and behavioural disorders to community health development, the health and social care sector offers a variety of career paths.

Sectors you could work in include, criminal justice, mental health, community care, and public health, and you could work for organisations such as the NHS, local authorities, private companies, or social enterprises.

In year one, you’ll hear from community organisations. In year two, you’ll complete a work placement. In year three, you’ll have mentoring by health and social care sector leaders from our Social Care Partner Network to gain knowledge of leadership and entrepreneurship.